Bride of the Monster (1956) - Edward D. Wood Jr may have been "a boozer and a loser" (quote courtesy of Bela Lugosi Jr) but he managed to make several now legendary bad movies, this was one of them. To me passion is what marks the difference from being a simple grindhouse hack to becoming a cult figure, and Ed Wood, for all of his self destructive tendencies, certainly had it. His movies have all the quirks and subtext of what it truly means to be an autuer, he just...well, his movies truly must be seen to be believed. And the poetic sounding nonsense his characters continually ramble off is simply beautiful.

"Home, I have no home!"

5 slimes, could not be anything less.

Black Dog (1998) - Boy did this movie bring on the nostaglia. A true blue B-movie throw back to all those trucker pictures that flooded the drive-ins in the wake of Smokey and the Bandit during the late seventies. It had me and the Mrs. cheering, laughing and clapping and promising to buy ourselves and copy of this really stupid piece of trash. Go figure. 5 slimes.

I saw 'PI' first, which I really enjoyed. Very 'Eraserhead,' but a lot more fun, I thought. It's a recent black and white movie about a guy obsessed with numbers. He's also afflicted with trippy migraines (I can relate). He stumbles upon a divine number, and then is chased by a wall street mob and a Jewish underground sect: both want the magic number for their own purposes. Artsy, funky, slightly gory, and all-around cool. The ending left me scratching my lobotomized head, but in a good way. Not in a 'Possession'/Isabelle Adjani kinda way.

To follow up this rather cerebral flick, I picked up Corman's 'Battle Beyond The Stars' ... which is a celluloid lobotomy. I saw this years ago, but I had totally forgotten how terrible it was. It had me laughing so hard at times, I had tears streaming down my cheeks. Possibly the worst space fight scenes ever produced (there are never two ships in the same shot). Hideous over-acting. Dumb-as-dirt script. And a chick with several cool Viking hats. God-awful. I loved it.

I'm about to watch 'The Mack' for an upcoming conversation with the 'real' Abby. I doubt it can compete with 'Battle Beyond The Stars.'

I saw Pi this weekend also. Its an awesome movie, even if I don't understand what the hells going on half the time. Also I was able to see my favorite B-Action movie, Commando; and I even was able to watch another hour of my five hour version of Apocalypse Now.

I, also, watched two movies this weekend, both of which just happened to be excellent kung fu flicks.

For the first one, I took Andrew's advice and rented The Bhuddist Fist, which was extremely entertaining. There's something so wonderfully entertaining about dubbing, I'm not sure exactly what. The tape quality, though, was horrible, there were spots everywhere and a very persistant white line down the left side of the screen.

The second one was Jackie Chan's The Legend of Drunken Master, which contained some of the best kung fu fighting I have ever had the pleasure of viewing. It's an old skool one, too, complete with overacting and bad English dubbing. Basically, Jackie's character is trying to save China's national treasures from being sold by the evil British steel mill owners, using his special fighting style - Drunken Boxing, which, of course, he does best with enormous amounts of alcohol. Unfortunately, he doesn't know when to stop, leading to embarassment for himself and his family. Eventually, though, being Jackie Chan, he kicks the evil British people's collective asses, recovers the national treasures, and is a hero, thereby bringing honor to his family. My favorite character in this movie was probably his kung fu stepmother, a closet mah-jongg addict who has no qualms whatsoever about manipulating her husband in order to aid Jackie in his crazy schemes. I'd highly recommend this movie to any kung fu fan, especially the last scene in the steel mill in which everyone gets set on fire. Good mindless fun.